Arctic climate in the run-up to the Great Ice Age

Around 3.6 Ma ago a large extraterrestrial projectile slammed into the far north-east of Siberia forming crater 16 km across. The depression soon filled with water to form Lake El’gygytgyn, on whose bed sediments have accumulated up to the present. A major impact close to the supposed start of Northern Hemisphere glacial conditions was a tempting target for coring: possibly two birds with one stone as the lowest sediments would probably be impact debris and boreal lake sediments of this age are as rare as hens’ teeth. The sedimentary record of Lake El’gygytgyn has proved to be a climate-change treasure trove (Brigham-Grette, J and 15 others 2013. Pliocene warmth, polar amplification, and stepped Pleistocene cooling recorded in NE Arctic Russia. Science, v. 340, p. 1421-1426).

Lake El’gygytgyn impact crater. (credit: Wikipedia)

The team of US, Russian, German and Swedish scientists discovered that the sedimentary record was complete over a depth of 318 m and so promised a high resolution climate record. The striking feature of the sediments is that they show cyclical variation between five different facies, four of which are laminated and so preserve intricate records of varying weathering and sediment delivery to the lake. The sediments also contain pollens and diatom fossils, and yield good magnetic polarity data. The last show up periods of reversed geomagnetic polarity, which provide age calibration independent of relative correlation with marine isotope records.

A host of climate-related proxies, including pollen from diverse tree and shrub genera, variations in silica due to changes in diatom populations and organic carbon content in the cyclically changing sedimentary facies are correlated with global climate records based on marine-sediment stable isotope. These records reveal intricate oscillations between cool mixed forest, cool coniferous forest, taiga and cold deciduous forest, with occasional frigid tundra conditions through the mid- to late Pliocene. Compared with modern conditions NE Siberia was much warmer and wetter at the start of the record. Around the start of the Pleistocene sudden declines to cooler and drier conditions appear, although until 2.2 Ma ago average summer conditions seem to have been higher that at present, despite evidence from marine proxies of the onset of glacial-interglacial cycles in the Northern Hemisphere.

In detail, Lake El’gygytgyn revealed some surprises including rapid onset of a lengthy cold-dry spell of tundra conditions between 3.31 to 3.28 Ma. The first signs that the lake was perennially frozen appear around 2.6 Ma, well before evidence for the first continental glaciation in North America, presaged by signs around 2.7 Ma that winters consistently became colder than present ones. Overall the lake record presents a picture of a stepped shift in climate in the run-up to the Great Ice Age. Lake El’gygytgyn seems set to become the standard against which other, more patchy records around the Arctic Ocean are matched and correlated. Indeed it is the longest and most detailed record of climate for the Earth’s land surface, compared with 120 and 800 ka for the Greenland and Antarctic ice-caps.

Modelling their findings against likely atmospheric CO2 levels the authors provide grist to the media mill which focuses on how the late Pliocene may be a model for a future warm Earth if emissions are not curtailed, with visions of dense polar forests

The Atmosphere and Ocean: A Physical Introduction, 3rd Edition

Impact Cratering: Processes and Products

Dinosaur Paleobiology

Fundamentals of Geobiology

Reconstructing Earth’s Climate History

Introduction to Geochemistry

Speleothem Science: From Process to Past Environments

Life in Europe Under Climate Change

Terrestrial Hydrometeorology

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this blog are personal to the author and are not necessarily shared by any sponsors or owners of the blog or any other person or entity involved in creating, producing or delivering it and no such party shall be held liable for any statements made or content posted.